By repealing those coverage provisions of PPACA and the Reconciliation Act, over the 2012-2021 period H.R. 2 would yield gross savings of $1,390 billion and net savings (after accounting for the offsets just mentioned) of $1,042 billion.

It must feel pretty good, that you (Anne) are the face of Madison to so many readers of that newspaper. You are the first one whom they think of, over time, when they think of that city.

I am not suggesting here that these photos have made Anne famous with that crowd, but rather, that her prominence today is indicia that she was already a face of this part of fly-over country with that crowd.

Canada went through this in the early 70's btw. It's where I developed my dislike for unions - growing up watching public sector unions hold a knife to the government's throat when our country teetered on the edge of a financial abyss. It ended with the government backing down, and a national debt that we never quite did pay fully down. I don't expect anyone to remember it, or even have heard of it. But you haven't seen the beginning of how thuggish this is going to get.

Repealing Democrats' healthcare reform law would increase the deficit by $210 billion over 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office said Friday.

GIGO

In any case, actual repeal is dead for the moment. Instead, the GOP today just defunded ObamaCare for the rest of the fiscal year. This will, of course, be quite exciting to watch as it moves into the Senate, and thence maybe to the President.

And I would expect to see the same cast of liberal protesters, from Obama down through Pelosi, Jackson, SEIU, Code Pink, etc. as the resolution to run the government expires next month.

A couple of days ago, I don't think anyone was sure whether or not the defunding of ObamaCare was going to get into the House spending bill. It somehow escaped committee without that included. But, this seems to be another example of the new rank and file Republicans in the House flexing their muscle.

So, anyone's guess at what is going to happen when the President and the Democrats on the one side, and the House GOP on the other, play chicken with shutting down the federal government next month?

My vote is for the Democrats to flinch first. They have a lot more constituents at risk here, if the government shuts down. And, it is still close enough to the election that a lot of the newly elected GOP in the House will not have sold out yet.

Should be interesting.

Let me add that a bunch of other liberal causes have also gotten the axe in that budget bill, including Planned Parenthood.

I really don't know what the Democrats expected, when they so greatly over-played their hand last Congress, passing ObamaCare in the face of so much opposition in the American public. Sure, they could ram it through. But it also almost guaranteed that the House this Congress would be Republican, elected in many cases specifically to repeal all that odorous legislation passed by the Dems in the 111th Congress.

Aren't the elections for Governor every 2 years? Walker only has a very short window to work with, if the Dems don't like him, they can get things back the way they want in fairly short order.

These protests are really about fear. Fear that the people of Wisconsin really want the teachers to earn less and pay more for their benefits. Fear that the people of Wisconsin are paying attention to how much it costs for all of these government services.

I don't know what they think they will accomplish with these protests. They've already lost by causing the schools to be shutdown. Then the protest is saturated with hateful signs instead of "Help Our Children" type of signs. The rhetoric is all wrong for the times. Unions win by pointing out the dickishness of the corporate owners. But right now, the tax payers are realizing that they are the owners of the government.

Which is why I can't understand how these protesters can compare themselves to the Egyptian protesters. The protesters in Egypt are trying to reclaim their lives from an all-encompassing bureaucracy built through patronage that uses thuggish violence to wring all the money it can from the people. So...err...

I am not suggesting here that these photos have made Anne famous with that crowd, but rather, that her prominence today is indicia that she was already a face of this part of fly-over country with that crowd.

And I think its cool how her photography and political chat have intersected for this event.

Let me add that a bunch of other liberal causes have also gotten the axe in that budget bill, including Planned Parenthood.

Good. We need more poor women having children they can't afford to raise. Makes it much easier to repeal the Clinton era welfare "reform." Glad to see the GOP is willing to pay to raise other people's kids. Pretty sure that's what Jesus would have wanted

Then they should shut their damn legs. Or, perhaps, work (oh, gosh, such a racist word!) at improving their skills so they will be attractive to an employer who wishes to hire people, and then be able to afford a family.

Jesus fuck, FLS, are you determined to race Garbage to the finish line in an "I can beshit myself in 10 seconds" race?

Interesting how Harshaw equates politics becoming personal with money. There's plenty of truth to that. It's personal when the government takes my money to provide cushy benefits that I don't have for public employees. The money matters in lots of other ways too.

But, politics are personal for a lot more reasons than money. It's personal because schools treat my daughters better than my sons, because politicians want to rob me and my kids of our rights, because they want to regulate what we eat, drink and smoke. Eventually, all politics are personal.